The First Age of Logic in Lithuania: An Interpretation of Discursus and Syllogismus

Abstract

This publication is a part of a larger corpus investigating the 16th century Lithuanian Logic. It analyses the explanation of the third operation of human intellect, that is, reasoning, or discourse (ratiotinatio sive discursus). The author of the article focuses on the interpretation of a certain precognition as the necessary precondition of the discourse, as well as on the conception of syllogism as the most prominent species of the discourse. The article comes to the conclusion that the authors of the aforementioned logic traditionally affirmed that, in order to reach the conclusion in the discourse, it is necessary to know in advance the significates of the conclusion’s terms, the fact of the existence of the conclusion’s subject as well as the fact that the premises of the discourse are true statements. It was also traditionally asserted that the precognition required for the discourse has nothing in common with Plato’s concept of anamnesis that was regarded as entirely fictional one. The article also concludes that scholastic tradition was as well followed within frames of the conception of syllogism.